ACRU’s Supreme Court Brief Says Lack of Mandate Would Doom ObamaCare

Jan. 4, 2012 — The American Civil Rights Union filed its fifth brief challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare.

The brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, authored by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara, argues that lack of a mandate forcing individuals to purchase health insurance through government-approved exchanges would doom the entire system.

The brief states:

“Because the Affordable Care Act does not include a severability clause, if the individual mandate is found unconstitutional, then the whole Act must be struck down as unconstitutional.”

At least one lower federal court has ruled that the individual mandate exceeds the constitutionally-enumerated powers of the federal government. And the health care law itself declares that it cannot work without the mandate.

If regulation required fire insurers to issue policies to people whose houses were already on fire at standard rates, the fire insurance pool would include only all burned down houses, which would obviously be dysfunctional,” the brief states. “The resulting financial death spiral would cause the costs of other provisions of the ACA to soar ….”

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